What's my name ?

“What is your name?” , “How tall are you?”, “How are you?” and “Jerry what happened to you?” are some of the most questions that has been asked of me in the space of the last 2 years. While other questions are answered with no restraint, the last one poses as a kind of challenge to me because recounting the same experiences over and over again is getting tiresome for me so I thought I’d just write a once and for all post. If we are not that close, my name is John Jeremiah and I am a 22 year old human being, this post is to recount my journey with religion and where I am at this point in time. I’m also not here to play victim, I am in a much better place now. Just flow with me

As a kid, I have always been someone who lurked in his own mind, I once believed God casted a spell on Jesus so he would forget to come back (This was after many people had toured heaven and hell and they came back with this stories of Jesus begging God to let him tarry in his coming), I eventually believed Jesus was probably on earth and as a kid. As most kids don’t even know what they are doing or whether they were on some divine mission from heaven or not, the twist to that was if the kid came to consciousness of his being, rapture would take place. Then I somehow believed I was Jesus but I was now conscious of myself so what was holding my second coming? I took “live like Jesus” just as I was taught to “You are Jesus, now live !” . 

My tenure as Jesus ended few days after my Mom gave me a whooping of my life, my crime? She sent me to the market to get some things for her instead I spent over 2 hours in the market watching a Chinese movie that a Video shop was airing publicly. If there was one thing I knew as a kid, it was that nobody will ever beat Jesus. Other times in primary school, I would sit in class and picture myself in a cinema and the chalkboard as the screen. From my seat I would shoot my own movies from my mind and have the time of my life only stopping and continuing when the bell rings

I and my siblings used to go church on our own as kids, we’d take a commercial bus to church to literally have a good time playing with instruments hours before the choir practice. Thinking back now, I must say they were good memories, very good ones. If I could go back to being a kid and stay oblivious of the realities of life, I would gladly do so. I did my fair share of religion, as far back as 2010 early I was already part of a Christian motivational talks circle and I did this through secondary school.

I stopped when I started getting introduced to doctrinal teachings and from there I was ushered into more doctrinal talks. It was from there doctrinal differences became very evident to me. Growing up I heard about the different sects in the body of Christ, one thing I always said to myself was WHY ALL THE DIFFERENCES??? , another group explained WHY some many years later. Overall, being part of these body of Christ gave me a high sense of purpose and elitism too (I felt different than my pairs because I was way ahead of them on doctrine and subjects surrounding it).

After my secondary school days, I became friends with other people who wanted to know God and boom ! I met the son-ship movement. They majored on teachings around the soul and the salvation of the soul, their strength is oration.  I must say this group was the most vivid of my journey with religion. The promised salvation of the soul was one thing no one could not reach but we went after it anyways. It is like being teased and never getting that thing. Let me get our imaginations working, has anyone ever tried kissing someone and they kissed everywhere but the lips, can you imagine the type of longing and hunger that could create in the recipient? I had to use that example because it was the closest to the bliss I got from that sect. Euphoria and Dopamine surging at the speed of light. This was different from other Christians who were endlessly chasing after making heaven, they did so with fear. If you asked me, there isn’t any much happiness in that.

  From the moment I started getting introduced to doctrines in secondary school, the subject of eternal security was one I struggled with. I eventually came around to it, the son-ship movement believed this too so struggling for the salvation of one’s soul didn’t have any undertones of doom and gloom like the traditional Christianity. So from secondary school I already believed in eternal security and argued about it too. I was very active on Facebook, I quickly found myself with the eternal security movement there which also had its own sub sects. It seemed Christians disagreed on everything even things that are spelt out in the bible. The bible was the constituted authority which I didn’t like because the bible itself basically puts itself as the only authority but I am not here to talk on that. I will probably do that in another post, maybe or maybe not. Anyways I joined the online war on Facebook arguing and debunking doctrines against Christians, Muslims, Universalists, Atheists and Agnostics alike, all this was on Facebook. One of the things the arguments did for me was seeing things from the perspective of others, some of their points lingered.

I think that’ll be all on that aspect of my younger years. Fast forward to University days, the divisions in the body was much evident here. Let me just summarize my religious escapades. I was made an exco in my second year, a position that really exposed me to leadership for the first time, Omo ! Leadership is not an easy something o, I roughed it anyways. However, I started having trouble with this body too despite how accommodating they were of different views.  Eventually I left this body with some friends who felt the same way and from there we all went our separate ways. One thing I’ve learnt about this is the importance of association, why people who shared the most alike views need to band together. At this point, I was starting to get tired of all the fights that had to be waged for doctrine.

Anyways I resigned to joining a fellowship on campus and just live out the rest of campus days in peace but my mentor had other plans for me. 

I’m stopping this post right now because I have reached my 1000words mark and I would not like to bore anyone (lies !! my chest is getting heavy so I am backing off this for a few days), will probably pick up from where I stopped next week. Just finished setting an alarm to write on Sunday, I hope I measure up.

I really hope I do.

While you're here, you might want to interest yourself with an alternate Christmas story that I wrote Christmas according to a passerby